


You Ruddy Liar

by VanillaMostly



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMostly/pseuds/VanillaMostly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifth year, Rose is made prefect.  To her displeasure, someone she doesn't want to see is made prefect too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own.  
> Hope you enjoy! I love this couple mwahaha. More chapters to come.  
> Also I'm pretending to be British so a lot phrases coming out of characters' mouth might sound weird cuz they're probably American slang. tried though.

Ch.1 : Late

 

"Quick, quick," Mum said, gesturing at the barrier.  My brother didn't need any prompting; for some reason he really got a kick out of running into that wall.  He sprinted with his trolley so fast his new owl, Archimedes, hooted in complaint.

"Calm down, Hermione.  In case you forgot, you're not going back to school. Unless you plan on sneaking on the train?"

"Very funny, Ron."

Dad just chuckled as Mum made a face and followed after Hugo through the barrier.  "Hurry!" she called after her shoulder.

Dad shook his head and grinned at me.  "Oh, this brings back memories.  Did I ever tell you that story when your Uncle Harry and I were late and we - "

" - stole Granddad's enchanted car and got your arses whipped by the Whomping Willow?  Yes, at least twenty times."

"And it just never gets old, does it?  Want to try it?  We only have to wait around for five more minutes..."

I rolled my eyes.  "How about we don't?"

Dad pretended to sigh in disappointment.  "If you say so, Roise-Posie."  I wrinkled my nose at that stupid nickname but had to let a grudging smile.  He offered me his arm and I took it, and we slid through the barrier into King's Cross.

The platform was crowded with kids and their families, hugging and exchanging goodbyes.  I spotted the Potters not far away and waved.  Albus looked really tan; guess that's what going to the Carribean does to you.  Lily's a redhead so she just got more freckly.  I can already imagine her complaining about that for the entire train ride.  I don't see James, but he's very likely off with his gang of loudmouth sixth-year Quidditch jocks.

"Give me your suitcase, hon," said Mum, but she grabbed my trunk before I moved a finger and shoved it up the train anyway.  "Have a nice trip," she said, kissing me on my forehead.  "I love you.  Study hard and remember to write, ok?"  She looked around.  "Where's Hugo?" 

I just noticed that my brother wasn't next to her.  "Ron, have you seen him? He did get here didn't he?"  Mum's voice rose a few pitches.  Seriously, it speaks volumes that my mum gets this freaked out when we're running just a little late.  And technically, we weren't even late.

"Mum, don't worry," I said, craning my neck and searching the crowd.  "He's probably - oh, see, there he is.  Boarding."  I pointed a few windows down where Hugo's spiky hairdo (he was going through a hair gel phase, it's really quite unfortunate) was unmistakable.

"Oh," said Mum, biting her lip.  "Why didn't he wait to say goodbye?"

Dad just laughed and put his arm around her.  "He's getting to that age, Hermione.  Come on, he'll be home for Christmas before you know it.  And then we can ground him for ditching us."

Even Mum had to laugh at that one.  I hugged Dad next.  He smelled like cats. Fuzzball must have slept on him again.  It's ironic that Fuzzball, who is supposed to be my cat since I begged my parents to adopt him when I was five or six, likes my dad's company way more than mine.

"Have a blast, Rosie-Posie," said Dad, hugging me back. 

"Only two minutes left, Rose - get on the train, hurry!" said Mum, pushing me foward.

"Gee, it's like you can't wait to get rid of me," I said, but I obeyed her and squeezed my way up the train.  As I left I could hear Mum saying to Dad that he has got to stop influencing me with his "inappropriate jokes."

On board the Hogwarts Express, I passed by Dominique, who was talking to two Ravenclaw guys, totally clueless that they weren't even absorbing a single word she was saying; one guy's mouth was even hanging open and in danger of drooling.  Poor guy.  I glimpsed my dear brother Hugo, too, sitting in a compartment of rowdy third-year Hufflepuffs.  I was tempted to knock on the door and embarrass him in front of his friends but thought better of it; it was much more fun embarrassing him in front of third-year girls.  Not much further down the hall I saw Molly in the middle of an impassioned spiel while other members of the Debate Club listened attentively.  She was really starting to look more and more like Uncle Percy in one of his rants on broomstick regulations.

Finally I passed one compartment that I just had to stop by.

"Wotcher," I said, sticking my head in.

Albus looked up, in the middle of opening a Chocolate Frog.  "If it isn't Rosie-Posie!"

"No, we need to come up with a new name for her," said Lily, who was looking at her mirror while fixing her hair.  "'Cause Rose's a prefect now."

"Prefect Rosie," said Albus as he tossed a Chocolate Frog at me.  "No, it just doesn't sound as catchy."

"I like your hair, Lily," I said, pocketing the Frog.

"Thanks," beamed Lily as she swished her head around.

"Great, you had to say that, now she's gonna do that all day."

Lily pelleted her brother with hair clips.  "Well, Rose?  Excited for your first prefect meeting ever?" she asked me.

"Yeah, right," I said.  I turned to Albus.  "Are you positively sure you're not pulling my legs by hiding the fact that you _are_ actually the Slytherin prefect so I can, I don't know, look like a prat and then later laugh at how hilarious it is?"

"No."

I sighed.  "And I don't find it suspicious at ALL that you won't tell me who the Slytherin prefect is, even though you claim you know."

"Yup."

"You're impossible," I said. 

"Tell me how it goes!" he said cheerfully as I closed the door.

Well, there was no turning back.  I arrived at the door of the front carriage, a.k.a. where the Prefects are all supposed to meet, and slid open the door.  Not surprisingly, the room was already full.  Everyone turned to look at me.  The Head Boy, some Ravenclaw bloke named Derbyshire, looked really reproachful since I had apparently interrupted his speech. 

"Sorry," I said.

"Take a seat," he said impatiently.  I sat down next to my fellow Gryffindor prefect from my year, Alfred Cunningham.  He was a skinny guy who always had straight posture, like his back was made of an iron rod or something.  Even now he was sitting perfectly straight with his legs crossed, so he resembled an Indian chief. 

"What is it, Weasley?" Head Boy said.

I realized I had "pfft-ed" a little to loud.  "Nothing," I said.

"As I was saying," said Head Boy, glaring at me.  "The duty of a prefect is not to be undervalued.  We are here to protect the students and also to maintain order when..."

Blah, blah blah.  I looked around the room, taking note of who else just became newbie prefects this year.

Sitting a few seats away were the Ravenclaw fifth-years.  I didn't know the girl Kensington very well or the guy, Bradley McCarthy, though the latter had a memorable reputation for being, er, a passionate fan of my cousin Victoire.  When Victoire had been a seventh year and already dating Teddy, the eleven-year-old McCarthy kept following her everywhere and leaving her horrible love poems.  It gave Victoire a real headache.  As Victoire liked to put it, "Sometimes I really wish I was born with the face of a hippogriff's arse."

I knew the Hufflepuffs better.  Annie Finnigan was the daughter of two classmates of my parents, I've heard them mention.  She's a really nice person, though sort of shy.  The guy, Derek Wood, was the son of Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny's ex-Quidditch captain; I've seen him at Weasley gatherings a couple times.  He hadn't inherited his dad's Quidditch skills though.  Lily always stole the Quaffle from right under his nose in every match.

That leaves the Slytherins... including the big secret Albus has been hiding from me.  Hmm, who could it be?  I scanned the crowd of prefects carefully, but stopped when I realized someone was burning a hole in my skin with their death rays.

She was sitting across the room from me; I hadn't noticed earlier because Head Girl had been blocking my view.  Aside from the fact that I recognize her as a fifth-year Slytherin, I don't know her.  But for Merlin's sake, even James, the epitome of Slytherin-Gryffindor antagony, isn't the type to glare at random Slytherins with such pure hatred that the victim would wonder if he was attempting _Avada Kedavra_ non-verbally.

I frowned back at her, but the girl - Goldberg, I think her name is - didn't back down, just kept glaring.  Now that I think about it, whenever we crossed paths she'd always worn a look like I kicked her puppy or something.  Granted, I've never seen her smile at other people either.  But still.  Somehow I feel like she's got personal beef with me.  Now I don't recall ever exchanging a word with this girl, other than perhaps the occasional "I dropped my quill by your foot" during class. And I don't doubt my memory; it's the reason I was made prefect.  So what's her problem?

I was so immersed in my staredown with Mad Miss Slytherin that I nearly jumped out of my skin when, all of a sudden, the door next to me slid open. 

"You're fifteen minutes late," said Head Boy irritably.

I looked to see who was standing at the door. 

And all I could think of was, _What's he doing here?_

Head Boy shook his head grumpily.  "Don't do it again, understand?  Especially not for patrol duty, Malfoy."

"Yes, sir."

I really felt like beating Albus up right then and there.  Because I am so not amused at who Mystery Slytherin Bloke turned out to be.  SO not.


	2. Bets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol... I've kept this on my computer for a really long time. I don't know where the story is even going after this, but whatever, you guys enjoy anyways -__-

Right after the prefect meeting was over - which lasted way too long in my opinion for just passing out a couple copies of schedules - I could not get back to Albus and Lily's compartment fast enough.  Albus Severus Potter had a lot of explaining to do. 

I burst into the compartment, pointed at him accusingly and opened my mouth-

-when Albus looked behind me and said, "Hey, Scorp.  Back from the meeting?"

So Malfoy had turned into a stalker now and had apparently been tailing me the whole time.  Lovely.

He glanced at me, then looked at Albus.  "Yeah," he said into the awkward silence.

"Quit standing there and get in here, then," said Albus.

I widened my eyes and gave Albus an are-you-mad look.  But that's when I noticed there was a dark blue bag next to him, sitting near the window.  One that I knew belonged to neither Albus, Lily, nor me.

Malfoy walked past me, sat down beside Albus, and moved the dark blue bag to under his feet.

 _You invited him to sit with us?_   I screamed in my head.

Albus smiled innocently at me.  "What's wrong, Rose?  Sit down."

Oh, Potter you conniving little bastard, I am so going to get you.  But Albus, of course, only ignored my pointed looks and turned to discuss with Malfoy about Quidditch.  It was moments like this when I wished I knew Legilimency.  Dad knows it for his job but always said I was "too young" to teach me.  He was obviously quoting Mum, but whatever.

I truly considered running out of there - sitting with anyone, even possibly James and his annoying gang of friends who smelled like sweaty socks all the time, was better than this situation.  Lily seemed to read this from my face. "Rose!" she said loudly.  "Paint my nails for me?  _Please_?"

Her puppy eyes were notoriously impossible to turn down.  I sat down next to her and decided to take a different strategy.  If I pretended he wasn't here, then pretty soon I'll believe he's not here.  Yes, that's it.  For the rest of the trip I painted Lily's nails and braided her hair and listened to her prattle on about some really cute Muggle boy she met on the cruise ship this summer.  By the time the train started to slow down my cheek muscles were stiff from holding my fake everything's-so-peachy smile.

"Er, Weasley?"

Great, now he's _talking_ to me?  I pretended not to hear him and kept on reading Lily's Witch Weekly magazine - Weird Sister's drummer was seen picking her nose at the Leaky Cauldron.  How fascinating.

A pale hand nudged me lightly on the shoulder.  Bloody hell, now he thinks he can _touch_ me?

"We're supposed to help them unload the trunks, if you remember."

If I remember? _If_ I remember?! How dare he - (Actually, I didn't remember hearing this part in the meeting as I was too distracted by a certain person's presence, but that is besides the point.)

Without a word I stood up, gave the magazine back to Lily, and stalked out of the compartment without batting an eyelash in Malfoy's direction.  I heard him follow me out and I sped up my steps.  He should be getting the message but when I stepped off the train onto the platform, he circled to my front and blocked me.

"Weasley, look. I'm sorry about what happened.  But it was ages ago.  Can you quit being mad at me?"

I almost made a snappy retort and ruined my plan of ignoring his existence, but was saved by a familiar, gruff voice.

"Rosie! How yer doin'?"

"Hagrid!"  I couldn't be happier to see him.  For various reasons.  I stepped around Malfoy and hurried to Hagrid's side. "I'm good, how are you?" I said.  From the corner of my eye I saw Malfoy turn around and leave.

"Congrats on ya gettin' yer prefect badge," said Hagrid, ruffling my hair.  "Yer makin' yer ma n' pa real proud."

"Thanks," I grinned.

"Where'd yer friend go?" Hagrid asked, looking around.

My grin slid off my face immediately.  "He's not my friend," I said.

Hagrid looked like he wanted to say more but was distracted by the influx of students onto the platform.  "I gotta go, Rosie.  Visitin' me for tea this week?  And tell yer brother too!"

He waved and went off rattling his lantern and yelling, "Firs'-years! Firs'-years this way!"  That's when someone bumped into me from behind, alerting me that it's probably not a good idea to be standing motionless on the platform when two thousand students are stampeding out.

"Pardon me," I started to say as I turned around...

But I stopped when I saw that it was Goldberg, the girl Slytherin prefect, who had bumped into me.   She adjusted her prefect badge (come on, it doesn't even look lopsided) and gave me another one of her wrathful glares.  Then she brushed past me so forcefully I took a small step back. 

Okay, so one Slytherin prefect hates my guts and the other one I... strongly dislike.  What a year of prefect duty to look forward to.

Other than that unpleasant encounter I didn't run into any more problems.  Pretty soon everyone had gotten their trunks and the crowd on the platform was thinning.  As I made my way to the carriages I spotted Hugo running past me.

"Hugo!  Oi, Hugo!"

I had to run to catch up with him.  "Hey, did you not hear me?" I said.  He shook me off and kept walking.  "Where're you going?  Lily and Albus are that way!"

"Bug off, Rose," he snapped and took off running.

I frowned.  Puberty does strange things to some people.

I trudged off to where Lily and Albus were waiting to get on a coach.  As I approached, though, I saw it wasn't Albus but my other black-haired cousin Lily was talking to.

"I'm going with Gryffindor," James was saying.

"You always say Gryffindor, that's how you lose."

"I was right last year wasn't I? With Lucy?"

"You have to judge on a case-by-case basis.  Lucy's a daredevil, Louis is sharp as a knife.  See?  Ravenclaw for sure."

"Not this again," I said, stopping next to Lily.  "What's the point of arguing over this?  No amount of psycho-analyzing can help you predict Sortings."

"What's psycho-anal-thingamabob?" queried James.

"It's for fun," said Lily defensively.  "We're not harming anybody."

"Hey," said James, getting a mischevious look.  I recognized that look from many instances in our childhood.  And it mostly always led to tears and angry grown-ups yelling.  "Want to make it even more fun?"

"No," I said, the same time Lily raised an eyebrow and said, "Let's hear it."

James laughed and put an arm around his sister.  "How about we put in a little bit of..." - he rubbed his thumb and index finger together - "... to spice things up?"

"You mean place a bet?" asked Lily.

I whipped my head around. "You can't do that!  That's-"  I paused, knowing my voice sounded a bit suspiciously hysterical.  "That's - wrong," I finished.

"Oh, it's wrong?" James said mockingly.  "What you gonna do, Lady Prefect, take points from your own House?  We're sooo scared."

I crossed my arms and turned away from them.  I couldn't wait to just hop on a carriage, climb up to my room (to hell with the Sorting and prefect duties), crawl into bed and forget about what a shitty day it has been...

...and which was about to get worse, because heading in our direction was not just Albus lugging his trunk and owl cage.  There was also a flash of blond hair.  I groaned.

"You brought Malfoy?" said James, smirking at his brother.  "Damn, you two are together way too much.  I'd think you were gay if it weren't for the fact that Malfoy likes r-rabbits."

I looked over at James. So I know my cousin says some nonsensical rubbish, but this is weird even for him.

"Hey, there's an empty coach!" Lily said suddenly, pointing.

"About time," said Albus.  As we climbed on I caught him glaring at James, who for some reason didn't glare back but looked sheepish.  And they said girls were hard to understand. 

The ride to school wasn't fun, especially because Malfoy somehow wound up sitting right across from me.  To avoid having to look at him I observed the empty reins at the front instead.  I knew about the threstals; I'd read about them in books, and plus Uncle Harry, my dad, my mum, and numerous others of their generation could see threstals.  They fascinated me, though of course I'd never say that since that sounds kind of morbid.  It wasn't like I _wanted_ to witness a person dying in front of me.  I just found the fact that threstals are both invisible and visible interesting.  After reading Muggle books on genes and atoms and wavelengths and the such, I always wondered.  Could laws of Muggle science and magic exist at the same time, or did one have to give in to the other?

"Hello, hello Rose," said Lily.  "I'm talking to you.  Are you even listening?"

"Oh," I said, breaking my gaze from the threstals.  Or what should be threstals if I could see them.  "I was - just thinking." 

"Thinking about what House Louis might be Sorted into, I hope," James said.  He shook his pocket, which jangled with the sound of coins.  "Lil is betting Ravenclaw, me Gryffindor, baby bro Slytherin.  Wanna make it even with a bet on Hufflepuff, Cousin Rose?"

I felt Malfoy's eyes on me, which I ignored, of course.  "No thanks, James," I said and turned away.

"Slytherin?" Lily asked.  "Please, Al, there's no way sweet little Louis is going in your House."

"What part of that naughty twerp is 'sweet'?" Albus retorted.  "You didn't have to babysit him.  He's a right little nightmare."  He paused.  "Wait a minute, Slytherins can be sweet!"

"They don't seem very quick on the wit, though," said James, which earned him a smack on the arm. "Oh, except this one here's a prefect, so I guess he's an exception.  What do you think, Prefect Malfoy?  You got a bet on a House?"

I kept my gaze on the trees blurring past.

"No," replied Malfoy.  "I'm not into bets anymore."

His voice was quiet, but it still somehow reached my ears.  I wanted to clap my hands over them.  Who cared what he said, or how sorry he sounded! 

Still doesn't make what he did any more forgivable.

 


End file.
